Desert
by Jinna
Summary: A pair of goggles spy on the movements of our 'folks' on Tatooine. Through their vision a forgotten past resurfaces while silent shadows get cast on the future… Now complete ;)
1. Default Chapter Title

**Desert**

**Chronology**: during TPM   
**Rating**: PG   
**Disclaimer**: every place, character, situation that exhibits the unmistakable SW trademark belongs to the 'venerable Flanelled One'. No rights infringment is intended. The story's main character belongs to itself instead, and to the… desert.   
**Note**: that Qui-Gon had already been on Tatooine is mentioned by Terry Brooks in the TPM novelization (pag. 108, hardcover edition). As for the Tusken ambush against Darth Maul, he himself gives us an account of it in his Episode1 Journal (pag. 60-62).   
**A special thanks** goes to my beta readers Eleia and Lys73 (wow, I've doubled my audience!).   
**I dedicate** this story to the Sinai 'Sandpeople'. In a magic February night, beneath that starry roof that only the desert can show off, they made me understand the real meaning of the word: 'freedom'.   
**I dedicate** it as well to Iain McCaig who contributed with his fantastic concepts to shape my dreams.   


A rise parched by the cutting blows of the twin suns. Rocks with a bleeding chromatism. And sand. On the skin. Beneath. Deep to the bones.   
Heavy strips of gauze shields a self-forgetful face from the inclemency of the weather. A pair of lenses, goggling like chameleon's eyes, protects the intent look of a vedette from the light's claws. A Tusken Raider. The incarnation of the desert spirit.   
The flat patch of desert just in sight of Mos Espa gets scanned, indifferent to the feverish anxiety of the Raider. Here and there the rippling surface of mirages gives the air a liquid look.   
An animal rests its bulk next to the Tusken. It snorts. The huge tapering horns on its head nervously swing.   
_I feel it too, my friend. Air is too still…_   
The Raider touches lightly the bantha's thick fur. A reassuring gesture. Then raises his head. Under the ominous mask eyes shut, giving way to the perceptions of the other senses.   
_Why don't you speak, desert wind? Why can't I hear you?_   
A silver flash cuts off the course of his thoughts. It's a starship. Her sinuous line glides down to the planet surface. Sand foam welcomes her. And wraps her.   
The Tusken Raider's body tenses, his left hand chokes the gaffi stick with a durasteel grasp. Uttering a guttural sound, he calls off his faithful mate. He vaults onto its back: man and animal, two extensions of the same body. Slowly the grotesque centaur finds shelter behind some rock spires. Deep slits crack open all along the vertical surface of the odd formations. Ideal place for lurking.   
The Raider is breathing with difficulty, tension perspires through his skin. But it is not the adrenaline storm of the predator who scents blood. Not this time. Old ghosts rise from the mist of the mind, like shadows from the words of a storyteller in a night of tales round the fire. Images, ferociously repressed. Dull sensations. The Tusken stops his ears. Shakes fiercely his head.   
_Shut up! I beg you…_   
But the desert wind has starded howling again.

"Be wary, Obi-Wan. I sense a disturbance in the Force".   
Qui-Gon's voice is almost a whisper.   
The look of the young Padawan crosses that of his mentor. A ultramarine shading intensity.   
"I feel it also, Master. I will be careful".   
Their exchange goes on beyond the words. A silence thick with signals. An instant, widened by the subtle vibrations that travel on the lines of their Jedi bond.   
Qui-Gon gathers up the R2 unit and the Gungan that will go with him to the spaceport. Spare parts are urgently needed, the hyperdrive generator is shot.   
The small group heads down the loading ramp. The warm welcome of the air sets their breath on fire. The sweat caress vaporizes. A few steps and sand is already master of their senses: it bites, blinds, furs up in their mouths.   
The Jedi Master watches the hypnotic landscape of the barren land. His glance shifts about the desolate arc of his visual field. Thin tendrils brush against his awareness, like mirages fool his mind eye. They call him with a persuasive voice, to withdraw immediately afterwards.   
_Concentrate on the moment. Feel. Don't think. Use your istincts… If only this disturbance…_   
Physical impressions mix up with extrasensory perceptions. The Jedi tilts slightly his head, his look lost in the empty landscape. For a moment the voice of the Force and the wailing of the wind sing in unison.

Through the wounds of the rock the scene condenses. Assumes sharp and definite edges. The Tusken gets back his focus, gags his emotions. Silently, as silent his thought is, he watches the movements of the strangers.   
An odd party leaves the starship. It's led by a tall, imposing humanoid, the unmistakable charism mark in his bearing. The heavy tails of his poncho dissimulates, but don't conceal from the expert eye of the Raider, the tense body of a warrior. He's graceful, at ease with the hostile sorroundings. Straight after him, the cylindrical shape of an astromech droid…_ what a piece for the Jawa's flea market…_ and an alien with a curious ambling gait. Some sort of amphibious, at a rough guess.   
_The suns will dry out your skin, pal. And then your soul._   
Suddenly two new figures appear in the wasting wasteland. A man, a soldier judging by the uniform. And a tiny girl with a long, elaborate hairstyle and a determined expression. The Tusken observes her at lenght. For a while his memory retreats into itself: another time, another young woman. The same resolution, the same ability at hiding anxieties and deep fears… The two groups discuss, then the man with the uniform heads back to the ship, leaving the girl with the warrior in disguise.   
The look of the Raider escorts the march of the small party till the moment the quivering of the thirsty land absorbs them into the illusion of its mirages.   
_I wasn't wrong, I couldn't be wrong… No. The breath of the desert never deceives its children._

§

For more than thirty hours the faithful bantha wanders through dunes and harsh cliffs. It escapes the sand storm that upsets the sleepy afternoon of the mesa. Warms up the cold embrace of the night. Shields from the red-hot slap of the new day. Tiredness doesn't slacken its pace. It does not ask for water. Nor food. But its patient rhythm doesn't manage to soothe the turmoil of its silent mate. Opposing forces clash in the Tusken's soul. So fiercely to tear it up.   
What to do? What to… feel?   
His balance begins to waver. That fragile balance achieved by listening to the extraordinary silences of the desert. By riding the freedom of the wide spaces. By getting aware of his own role in a society of equals. By gazing at that starry roof which gives shelter to dreams and dreamers.   
What to do? What to feel?   
For a moment the name of Sharad Hett floods with hope the arid agony of the young Raider. Hett, the red-eyed leader. The Tusken armed with a lightsabre.   
_He can help me! His wisdom, his advice can help me…_   
A short lasting hope. Source that quickly dries up. The loneliness of his emotions prevails once again. And pride as well. They shatter what he built through the years, like the storm wipes out the footprints in the sand. Loneliness and pride. An old curse. The same, as ever.

The twin suns glide down the horizon line leaving behind a bright trail of rust. Slowly the most blazing shades fade away. They dissolve into the dark nuances of the twilight and the pale tail of the sunset. Time to head back to the secret oasis, to take breath in the quietness of the familiar things. The fire, the tent, the fragrance of tea. The guttural sound of the accounts of the day. And of the tales.   
_Home._   
The bantha sets off with a heavy pace. Just a few metres. The animal feels the sudden stiffening of the legs of the Tusken, the hold of his knees on its sides. The Raider's head turns in all directions. Over and over again.   
_There's something... Something._   
A low growl urges the big herbivore to keep up. The reins push it towards a broad plateau which fans out of the rocky crests. The vision of a starship surfaces from the exhaust of a recent landing. It has got nothing in common with the commercial transports that jam the air traffic of the Mos Espa spaceport. The long sharp prow seems to be designed to pierce, penetrate, infiltrate. Beautiful and ominous. As ominous as her only occupant… A black robed humanoid appears at the hatchway. A wide hood hides his features. Though the gleam of his eyes filters through the shade wall. A feral gleam. Fixed in a timeless raving expression. The clang of his boots against the ramp rings in the Tusken's ears. It mingles with his pulse. The fresh evening air trembles as the stranger passes. Maybe it's the wind… The same wind that bends the Raider on his mount. It seeps into him. It freezes his blood. Icy wingbeat of a night predator.   
The movements of the alien dilate like a scene in slow motion... Two gloved hands take a pair of low-light electrobinoculars to the eyes. They guide it to the scanning of the sorroundings: rocks embroidered by the erosion, sandy wastelands, a few settlements. A control panel strapped to the dark lord's forearm activates three spherical probe droids. They float out of the ship and buzzing, head to the plain. The fiery glance of the stranger follows them as far as their black lamina melts in the blackness of the night. Then, with the same ghostly essence the stranger showed at his first appearance, he vanishes, swallowed up by the yawning mouth of his starship.   
Crouched on the back of his bantha, the Tusken has been taken by an uncontrollable shuddering. For the first time after many years, his shoulders give in to the shakes of weeping.

§

One hour goes by. And another one. The darkness fall halts the breath of the air and releases the one of the Raider and of the animal. They have been waiting for the night to cover their retreat and let down its sleep nets on the occupant of the starship. They cautiously set off. Silent like only the steps on the sand can be. They cover almost eight miles towards the 'reward well'. The huge herbivore has been worn out by two hard days'march. It wheezes, his snout contracted and dehydrated. The Tusken tries to make it drink from a dewback-hide bag. Then, with a wet cloth, he dumpens the chapping on its muzzle… What's a sand man without his mount? How can he be so reckless to risk its life?   
He keeps still, standing next to the bantha, his forearms resting on the saddle, the head bent, defeated. His mind wanders away unable to resolve the inner conflict.   
_I can't stay here. I'm expected at the camp. I'm expexted by MY life, by my tent under the stars…_   
He slowly raises his head, gazes at those distant suns. Right, the stars…   
_I must go, my friend. I… must._   
He ransacks two big bags hanging on either side of the saddle. Produces an old ragged cloack, wrapps himself up in it, hiding the gaffi stick in the inside. He lowers the hood over the goggles. He knows how to mingle with the sorroundings. How to dissimulate his presence. A skill born from necessity: years spent hunting, ambushing, dealing with trigger-happy farmers. And maybe from something else…   
He reassures his bantha, stroking fondly under its chin and emitting a series of low, discordant sounds with the hypnotic quality of a lullaby. Then, hitting hard its back, he sends it away.   
_Go, get back to the oasis. Your return will warn the others. You KNOW where taking'em… I'll be waiting there._   
He looks the docile animal departing, its big squashed snout turning around over and over again…   
With the broken soul of a betrayer, he turns his back to the faithful mate and starts off, following tracks that only his senses seem to detect.

Mos Espa rests in the fresh torpor of the night truce. The streets empty of the passers-by and fill with their dreams. Just the canteens linger over the wake. Bars and taverns with their rites of lights and sounds. Their officiants: scoundrels, gamblers, smugglers. Their liturgies: laughs, curses, blaster shots. Acrid smell of alcohol and spices.   
The Tusken's shadow glides on the buildings' walls, heedless of those sporadic life sparks. Silence matches his steps. And his stops. He keeps still in the darkness of some alley, keeping his ears cocked. A predator trait. A bunch of drunk humanoids crosses his way. They ignore him, likely incapable of recognizing their own image reflected in a mirror.   
The street seems to yield to the dust in sight of the slave quarters. An intricate beehive crisscrossed by a labyrinth of dirt stairways. A few lights still pierce through the night curtain, sharpening the rarefied atmosphere of the complex. A sense of trepidation hammers relentlessly in the back of the Raider's mind. It becomes a pang in front a modest but decorous looking hovel.   
_No…_   
The house of the 'little wizard'.   
The Sandpeople have got to know him by spying his traffics with the Jawas on the edge of the Jundland Wastes. By following him during his forays into the heart of the desert. By watching him racing in those awful pods that leave in their trail fire and sandstorms. Fast and nimble like the snake's spring at the prey.   
_To the point that some of our men have thought they've better practise target-shooting…_   
Exhausted, the Raider leans his back against the hovel's front door. He lets out the air held far too long in his lungs. The memory of his recent meeting with the infant prodigy resurfaces…   
… A slide. The lacerating pain and noise of a bone breaking up. Debris submerging his body and consciousness. Darkness.   
Then the awakening by the fire. A young human with hair and eyes reflecting the colour of the desert lands and skies. The 'little wizard'. He freed the Tusken from the vicelike grip of the rocks and brought first aid. There is no fear in his clear look. Nor bias. Curiosity, maybe. And… respect. Under the thick gauzes the Raider's mouth stifles a smile. A nearly forgotten act.   
_I can't! I mustn't…_   
That moment of weakness crystallizes and shatters in the embrace of dread. The child senses the turmoil of the wounded Tusken. It's clearly legible in his stare: focused, piercing. But probably he misunderstands the reasons of the sudden shift in the mood of the creature. Likely. And luckily…

Qui-Gon rests stretched out on the floor in the Skywalkers'hovel. Just his cloack relieving of its hardness. The vigilant sleeping of the Jedi steps easily over the waking treshold.   
_That disturbance again…_   
It's becoming a tidal wave. It assails his perceptions, dips them in a abyss of sadness.   
_Or is that nostalgia?_   
Then, nothing. Silence. Dead calm in the Force ocean…   
The Master leaves his robe behind and rushes out, hugged by the wet smell of the night. His senses alerted, the impassive expression betrayed by a twitch of his jaw muscles. A movement draws his attention. An indistinct shape slips away in a narrow alley on the other side of the street. The powerful legs of the Jedi dash in pursuit. Faster than any considered decision. They get lost in the maze of lanes. They grow weak contrasting the momentum of such an impressive body.   
For an instant the shade seems to hesitate. The light projected by a sign gives it a solid tridimensionality, transfiguring its dull flimsiness into the tails of a heavy cloack. There are just a few steps between it and its chaser.   
_Now we'll find out who you are…And what you want._   
But the mysterious creature is just in wait. A calculated, intentional wait. As soon as the Master's pace slows down, just in sight of the finishing line, the flight starts again.   
_He's not running away. No… He knows where to go. And he's playing like a Togorian cat with its prey._   
Qui-Gon's hand grips the hilt of his lightsabre, his forehead is running with sweat. He tries to probe the intentions of the fugitive but his sounding bounces off a rubber wall.   
_I've a bad feeling about this…_   
Buildings start to thin away, dusty roads give way to the first caravan routes. The Jedi's pheripheral awareness hardly records the crossing of the boundary between settlement and desert. His focus is elsewhere. In front of him. At the apex of the perspective line of his look…   
The creature has stopped short. His shoulders slightly bent, as trying to recover from the wild chase. Qui-Gon halts his pace just a few metres off. He's also short of breath, his hands leaning heavily on the knees. He raises his head trying to guess the moves of his opponent by the faint star light. Watches him slowly turning… the pale reflection of a metal staff filters through the night screen.   
_A gaffi stick!_   
Responding to an automatic reflex, Qui-Gon ignites his Jedi weapon. In the blink of an eye he is on his guard, sabre up, to the right of his head. The double-handed hold merges the arms with their letal extension. Ominous features appears from the spectral light of the blade: Tusken features, no doubt. The Raider doesn't react. He just contracts rhythmically his left hand's fingers on the gaderffii handle. A casual gesture that implies far more menacing purposes. The Jedi Master feels he is pierced by a glare he can't see. One that does not escape his insight, though.   
"Who are you?"   
The Raider's silence seems to interrupt the flow of time. Qui-Gon's eyes half-close letting hardly through the liquid intensity of their contents. They focus on the figure standing opposite: the cloack, the hood, the left-handed grip, the disturbance in the Force… Suddenly a dismayed expression spreads over his iris circle. Dismay and realization.   
"Amira!"…

**To be continued**

  


_Feedback is welcome, but again, not too "wude", please: I'm from the outer rim and don't fully master basic ;)_   
Jinna@sabermail.com


	2. Default Chapter Title

**Desert (Part 2)**

**Chronology: **during TPM   
**Rating: **PG   
**Disclaimer: **every place, character, situation that exhibits the unmistakable SW trademark belongs to the 'venerable Flanelled One'. No rights infringment is intended. The story's main character belongs to itself instead, and to the… desert.   
**Note: **That Qui-Gon had already been on Tatooine is mentioned by Terry Brooks in the TPM novelization (pag. 108, hardcover edition). As for the Tusken ambush against Darth Maul, well, he himself gives us an account of it in his Episode1 Journal (pag. 60-62).   
**A special thanks **goes to my beta readers Eleia and Lys73 (wow, I've doubled my audience!).   
**I dedicate **this story to the Sinai 'Sandpeople'. In a magic February night, beneath that starry roof that only the desert can show off, they made me understand the real meaning of the word: 'freedom'.   
**I dedicate **it as well to Iain McCaig who contributed with his fantastic concepts to shape my dreams.   


"Amira!"   
The Tusken's heads slightly bends, nodding assent.   
"I'm surprised it's taken you so long to recognize me, Master of the Living Force"   
The breather mask muddies the long lost memory of a clear, fascinating voice. For a moment the Jedi blade seems to flicker. Then darkness swallows it up with a low hiss.   
"A… a long time has passed…"   
He draws a hesitant sigh.   
"I wouldn't even know whether you were still…"   
He shuts his eyes closed, raises his chin, as enraptured by the mild night breeze. Wind is talking. Now he can hear it. A light whispering. The distant echo of a bond lost in the time labyrinth.   
_Her presence in the Force resounds like her voice through the breather mask. Filtered, muffled, distorted. That's why I couldn't recognize her sooner…_   
"If my memory serves me well they were blue… a transparent blue"   
Her words break into his thoughts. He looks at her with a questioning glance.   
"I don't understand"   
"Your eyes. Now they look… gray"   
"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. It's possible that your present point of view has got something to do with the darkness of the night and the light of my saber…"   
An amused expression spreads for a while over his face.   
"Once Master, always Master. I see you still manage to draw a lesson of Jedi wisdom from any trivial circumstance"   
The sarcastic note does not escape Qui-Gon's notice.   
"I wish that were so… You, for your part, haven't fallen out of your habit of wrongfooting people"   
They face each other for long, endless seconds, both unable to carry on such a surreal conversation. The Jedi tries to guess which of the expressions that toss in his memories'top hat, hides out under that mask…   
"How did you come to know that I was on Tatooine… How did you find me?"   
"Your Force signatures glitter like the North Star in a moonless night"   
"_Signatures_?"   
"Yours and… the child's"   
"Do you know Anakin?"   
Amira's silence is packed with answers. Qui-Gon studies her attentively. An impenetrable shield shrouds her mind. Exactly as the gauzes conceal her face.   
"You explained how you got to me but you haven't told me WHY…"   
"You're being in jeopardy. You, your people, the child. A… an agent of evil wanders through the desert. Last night I ran into him. The Dark Side is strong with him. It blazes like a black fire, I clearly sensed it. He sent out three probe droids. He's hunting something… Someone"   
"Us"   
"Whom else, Qui-Gon?"   
He starts on hearing her uttering his name.   
_Yes, she's always had a special talent for surprising the others…_   
"Why do you think Anakin is in danger?"   
"Is it possible to ignore his presence? If the Dark Lord gets to you, he'll get to him and… to his powers. Don't underestimate my feelings"   
Qui-Gon reflects. A detached glance in his eyes.   
"I won't do that. I've never done it. Thanks for warning me"   
"I don't do it for your sake…"   
Her words plunge into old scars like a poisoned blade.   
"Amira, I…"   
"No, I must leave. I must return to MY people"   
"Wait!"   
_So many unsaid words, interrupted talks, pending explanations._   
"Let me look in your face. One last time… Please"   
A wave of astonishment escapes the woman's strict mental control. It strikes Qui-Gon with fierce intensity. Overwhelms his own surprise at the request only just made.   
He cautiously makes his way towards her. Feels her tearing hesitation. He is encouraged by that. Within breathing distance he stops. He keeps still, his eyes inflamed by the starlight.   
"Amira…"   
He brushes his fingertips against the rough surface of the bandages.   
_No!_   
A gloved hand grips his and blocks it. A durasteel grasp. For a few seconds only the broken sound of their sighs violates the sacredness of the silence. Then, overcome by a desperate need, Amira's aura overflows its banks. Her presence in the Force starts crackling again like a flame that has long smouldered under the time ashes.   
A click marks the opening of the lock that restrains the heavy dressing on the nape. With ritual-like slowness the Jedi's hands reveal the secret of that masked face to the spectral night light. The finely designed lips. The strong cheekbones. The amber-shaded eyes. And that chestnut hair, always at odds with paler strands of sand-blond…   
Qui-Gon lightly touches her face with the back of his trembling fingers. Traces them back down along her contour.   
The woman shuts her eyes. With ferocious persistency she ignores the plea of the tears.   
_What on earth got into me? Why am I infringing my people's laws? Why am I showing him my countenance? He's NOT my life mate. Force, he's doing that again… He's trying to take away from me the very little I have left: my identity…_   
She pushes him back with all her strenght.   
"Don't touch me. Never again. You're aware of our laws. You know it's forbidden"   
"Forgive me. I didn't mean to humiliate you. I just had the impression you…"   
"Shut up! It's all in vain. Can't you see it? Nothing has changed…"   
The mental shield is up again. Again it divides off.   
"I… I hate you"   
The young Tusken's words cast a thick shadow on Qui-Gon's face. They shake the foundations of his proverbial impassiveness.   
"Amira, don't. Don't do that to yourself. Hate leads to suffering"   
"You are wrong, _Master._ Suffering leads to hate"   
Suddenly she lifts up her gaderffii. Points it at the Jedi. Her hold is shaky though. Unsteady. A defensive position, devoid of any threatening intention. A mere cover for her slow, agonizing retreat.   
She draws away from him, step by step, without ever turning her back. Struggling hard against the iron will of every single cell of her body. Against the piercing cry of her skin and memories.   
Darkness gradually adsorbs her, blends her shape with the elusive shades of the wastelands. Until nothing is left over but sand, rocks, silence.

A man remains alone on the edge of the desert. Motionless like the stones scattered around. With a deep sigh he tries to loosen the grief's grasp. Then lets himself go on his knees and shutting his eyes he welcomes the soothing embrace of meditation.

§

A silent dialogue goes on the night breeze's wings. Questions, answers. Questions again. Two souls try to communicate without ever listening to each other. So many unsaid words, interrupted talks, pending explanations…

_What a mistake, Amira, tearing you from your people, from the broad physical and mental expanse of the desert, from the fierce freedom coded in your genes… But it was impossible to ignore your presence. It called us with the yearning intensity of the Force pursuing the Force._

**_What a mistake, Qui-Gon, trying to tame what's untamable, restraining my spirit, bending it to the rules. And to the discipline. What a mistake tearing me from the reassuring arms of the desert…_**

_Yet you were the brightest Initiate of the Temple. Determined. Brave. Insightful. A powerful mix of istinct and control. I'd have chosen you. I'd have picked you out as my Padawan if my failure with Xanatos hadn't undermined my reserve of trust and… hope. Everything would have been different… maybe._

**_If you only had picked me out as your Padawan… who knows? Things would have come to a different end. Perhaps. Or perhaps not._**   
**_I admired you. You knew it. I admired your stubborn indipendence. Your proud defiance to the dictates of the Code and of the Council._**   
**_Your rejection splitted open the first crack in that wall of control that I had built up to protect myself from the storms raging inside._**

_Master Ashur turned out less irresolute than me and chose you without reserve. His inclination towards the contemplative sides of the Jedi life seemed to counterbalance your intemperances, to smooth your sharpness. I still wonder why everything ended this way… Where's the Force led us? What's it brought to us?_

**_…Eventually the Force restored the natural order of things. It returned me to my people._**

_You were twenty. A brilliant curriculum. The Trials just round the corner. Sending you on mission to Tatooine was a blunder._

**_Tatooine, the last, fatal mission. The Council had staked on my istinct and my Tusken blood… Mastering dissimulation techniques was a basic requirement for an intelligence task in such extreme conditions._**

_A long trail of blood was staining the galaxy. A ferocious feud amongst Hutts for the control of the slaves trading. Some reports pointed to this forgotten planet in the Outer Rim as the stronghold of one of the involved clans. The Supreme Chancellor had finally made up his mind to turn to the Jedi Council for help in a covert intelligence operation._

**_Everything had seemed to go off smoothly till that Tusken group attacked us… Humming of sabres. Sand. Dazzling light. I can stil see the scene: a green blade… Mine. It sears through the chest of a Raider… I can still feel the tearing sense of something breaking inside. Irreparably._**

_Master Ashur and I were assigned the task. The Council deemed it necessary to send our Padawans along. Hardly an understandable decision..._   
_It had been a perfect team work. A fully successful mission. Till the clash with the Sandpeople… Amira, why couldn't you forgive yourself? You killed, right. You killed in defence of your Master's life. Why couldn't you grant your conscience an appeal? I can still see your eyes freezing: a hard stone look taking over. I can still see them loosing their warm sweetness. Once and for all. I can still see your shake, your stare at the fratricidal hand. And your flight…_

**_The second crack in my wall of control…_**

_I ordered Obi-Wan to take Master Ashur, badly hurt, back to the ship. And started looking for you. I hated myself for not being able to foresee the attack, to protect you, to spare you the lacerating choice between two contrasting loyalties._

**_I was no longer anything. Pulverized like sand. Like sand I got lost in the desert. But you managed to find me. Your notorious compassion. Your sense of honour…_**

_I tried to make up excuses, to justify my frantic search advancing noble pretextes…_

**_Your compassion tracked me down. That very compassion turned a pitiful hug into a desperate embrace…_**

_The Living Force led me to you. And… love. How dear it has costed to admit that… Love drove me over the limits fixed by the Code. And forced me to reveal myself. I pressed my body to yours and silenced that foreboding of loss that besieged my mind._   
_Can you still see it, Amira? Can you still feel it? The fire. The stars. The cool breath of the desert. My robe wrapping our bodies…_

**_…Till down broke in with its burden of innocent blood…_**

_We saw the twin suns rise. Their beams casting the thick shadow of a new group of Sandpeople. I feared a new attack. I had to defend you. I had to protect you…_

**_A handful of Tuskens was watching us from a rise over our camp. Still. Impenetrable. With the suns lazy rise they moved towards us. But they weren't bloodhunting. They were looking for me… They wanted ME. Only me..._**

_I just wanted to defend you… I just wanted to protect you…_

**_You killed my mother. Before my very eyes. A mother bent by twenty years of loneliness. By a loss that no Force in the Universe could have soothed. She was just trying to get back what had been taken away from her…_**

_They had sorrounded me, cutting me off from you. I didn't think rationally. I used my istincts. And tragically blundered. Only that silent farewell, projected through the Force by a dying mother, made me understand what I had done… What I'd done to you._

**_And together with her, you took away from me the very little I had left: my identity…_**

_I didn't know. I couldn't know._   
_That memory has haunted my conscience for years. Your glassy stare: hateless, sorrowless, compassionless. The damned slow movement of your hand while releasing the sabre's hold to deliver it to the oblivion of the sand…_   
_The sentence had already passed, Amira, hadn't it? No debate. No defense. Not even a trial. You condemned me. And more than me you condemned yourself._

**_But I was reborn. Reborn among the sweet smells of the hubba gourds ripening in the oases. The windy symphonies of the canyons. The fickle play of light caused by the endless chase of the twin suns…_**   
**_When a Tusken looses his faithful Bantha he goes into exile in the desert, until the spirits of the dunes direct him to a honourable death or to a new wild mate. A mate to get back to his own clan with..._**   
**_I lost what was dearest to me too. I also suffered exile and faced death. I finally returned. And found a new dignity in my people's embrace. Then, suddenly, you have reappeared. With your wizard-like whispers. With your power of evoking angels and ghosts. Nightmares and dreams…_**

_A part of me died. Died in the very moment the desert claimed you and tore you from your life, from my life. And now, after so many years, you come back to me with your dark warnings and everlasting pain. To run away again, unpredictable like the way the wind is blowing in these thirsty wastelands. Without even asking my reason for coming back to Tatooine… Why?_

**_I know what has driven you here. Perhaps more than you do…_**

  
**To be continued**

  


_Feedback is welcome, but again, not too "wude", please: I'm from the outer rim and don't fully master basic ;)_   
Jinna@sabermail.com


	3. Default Chapter Title

**Desert (Part 3)**

**Chronology: **during TPM   
**Rating: **PG   
**Disclaimer: **every place, character, situation that exhibits the unmistakable SW trademark belongs to the 'venerable Flanelled One'. No rights infringment is intended. The story's main character belongs to itself instead, and to the… desert.   
**Note: **That Qui-Gon had already been on Tatooine is mentioned by Terry Brooks in the TPM novelization (pag. 108, hardcover edition). As for the Tusken ambush against Darth Maul, well, he himself gives us an account of it in his Episode1 Journal (pag. 60-62).   
**A special thanks **goes to my beta readers Eleia and Lys73 (wow, I've doubled my audience!).   
**I dedicate **this story to the Sinai 'Sandpeople'. In a magic February night, beneath that starry roof that only the desert can show off, they made me understand the real meaning of the word: 'freedom'.   
**I dedicate **it as well to Iain McCaig who contributed with his fantastic concepts to shape my dreams.   
  
  


In the relentless light of the early afternoon the Nubian starship quivers like a mirage. But Amira's senses don't let themself be deceived by the red-hot frenzy of the desert. Lurking from behind the rock cathedrals, she watches. And waits.   
An ambush has just failed. A group of Raiders, belonging to her clan, tried to stop the dark warrior. They lured him into the gloom of a canyon, sorrounded and attacked him. But the stranger didn't even grant them the honour of a real fight. With an impressive show of strenght and cat-like grace he jumped over his aggressors and eventually shook them off, fast and efficient as only hate can be.   
_OTHERS are his opponents… And his targets._   
Now nothing remains but to wait. And to hope the diversion's at least hindered the black predator's hunt.   
Against the trembling horizon line two figures stand out. They rush to the ship. The Tusken woman doesn't need eyes to make out the identity of the two runaways. She feels Qui-Gon's anxiety, his tense concentration. She senses Anakin's exhaustion, his strain to keep up with the Jedi Master. The projection of their moods is so intense as to take her breath away.   
_Cheer up, just a few paces to go…_   
A wave of sheer dread suddenly strikes her perceptions. She recognizes its icy touch. Far too well…   
The unusually roundish shape of a speeder appears from behind the 'little wizard'. The dark lord is driving it. In the blink of an eye he fills the gap between his transport and the child. Only the instinct and Qui-Gon's timely warning save Anakin from being running over. The chase is not over though. The Jedi Master is the fulcrum which the mysterious warrior's aggression lever on. A red blade appears from the glare of the conspiracy of light and sand. It hits with a sore buzz the Jedi's green beam. Acrid smell of ozone flies on the wings of wind. It brings the young Tusken the echo of the ripplings in the Force field. The echo of its dramatic tears.   
Without delay the child springs to his feet and reaches the landing ramp.   
_Go, Ani, go!_   
Amira's body tenses, overwhelmed by the feeling of the titanic clash happening in front of her very eyes. An old reflex surfaces from her subconscious. Her left hand tries to grasp the metal cylinder that in times past used to escort her leather belt. In vain. Her feeling of helplessness increases. And her anger. It emerges from the abyss of fear. Floods her mind like a river in spate. It throbs with the relentless blood pressure on her temporal veins: the Dark Side. Dense. Viscous. She can almost touch it.   
_Quicker, easier, more seductive…_   
Quickness. That's what she needs now.   
_This time I can't wait and see while my life breaks to pieces… I have to do something. NOW._   
Exactly in that moment a powerful hand grabs hold of her shoulder. On the wings of a blind predatory istinct she's ready to deliver her deadly bowl. But a pair of red goggles freeze her momentum and… her intentions. Sharad Hett. Concentrated on the duel, she hasn't perceived the Tusken leader's approach.   
The ex-Jedi stares hard at her, slowly shaking his head.   
"Do no interfere. Watch instead"   
She turns her attention back to the scene of the fight. Out of the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of the spacecraft taking off, its loading ramp still lowered.   
_What the hell… Yes! Clever… This is definitely your work, Obi-Wan…_   
The transport quickly moves toward the two duellers. A sand storm, set off by the big transport's repulsorlifts, reduces considerably the visibility. Availing himself of the momentary advantage, Qui-Gon leaps onto the rampway and shelters in the bowels of the ship, by then in line with her escape vector.   
_It's over. It's over…_   
Hett squeezes reassuringly the shoulder of the younger Tusken. Through the Force he sends her a deep feeling of peace and acceptance. The mental caress of a man, of a Raider, who has been walking a similar life path.   
Amira's legs give way under the weight of the exhaustion and the tension accumulated in the last two days. Her nails sinks into the sand while thousands of images piles up in her mind. Memories. Recent and remote… A face, hardened by experience and responsability, shades into the soft innocence of a child's expression. The reflections of a bonfire dance with the shadows of the desert. Big, strong hands intertwine hers. While hers shakily wonder at the touch of tiny fingers. Blue blazing eyes shift from amused to concentrated looks. From piercing to sad… Those eyes. So alike. So different.   
The woman raises her goggles looking for the last Nubian's metal blink in the Tatooine azure blanket. Through her breather a lullaby resounds, broken at intervals by her tears. "Ila-l-likâ, ila-l-likâ" it says over and over again… ''Good-bye, Good-bye".   
Good-bye to her past and to her future. To the man who made her heart fly off. To the child whom that very heart let fly off. Her son… Now, walking the sky.

§

**Epilogue**

Tatooine's stars have never seemed so indifferent to the pain of Shmi Skywalker. So responsible for her loss. They took Ani away from her. And their twinkling triumph seems to make fun of the woman's bent figure, sitting wearily on the balcony rail of her back porch. All at once she feels the weight of years lying heavy on her back. Weakening her endurance.   
_Letting oneself go… That would be so easy…_   
A light rustle warns her of a new presence. An intruder. Hiding in the heavy tails of a cloack, it seems to scan her face from the darker corner of the porch. Still, like the evening air.   
"Will you be all right?"   
The woman's brown eyes half-close trying to focus and identify the owner of such an usual voice. A disguised voice. Or better, filtered…   
"Amira?"   
A slight shift of the stranger's head unveils a profile entirely wrapped in gauzes. Shmi doesn't need to know more.   
"I'm glad to meet you again"   
The slave's words crash again against a wall of silence. For a moment she watches the stoic and dignified figure of the Tusken woman. The back as stiff as a ramrod, the arms folded in the robe's wide sleeves.   
"How, did you do it Amira? How did you manage?"   
"This… This is not the first time I've been _wandering_ about your home…"   
"No. I mean, how did you manage to… give up Ani?"   
The sense of her question pierces like a vibroblade into Amira's mental shields.   
"Exactly as _you _did, Shmi. By learning to let go. Confident that it was the best I could do for him"   
The older woman shakes her head. A bitter smile hovers on her lips.   
"A life as a slave? Was it _the best_ for him?"   
"When I left him with you, you weren't a slave at all. And later on, what should I have done? Should I have torn him from the love of the only mother he had ever known? The will of the Force is often inscrutable, my friend… After all these years, I can hardly accept it myself"   
The slave bows her head and fixes her eyes on the dusty floor of the porch. Both her tears and her words have dry up.   
"Shmi, you've been the best mother Anakin could wish for. Never ever doubt that. What could I have taught to him? Grudge? Despair? Hate for those we love. Love for those we hate. The brutality of the life in the desert… No. You sowed the seed of generosity in his heart. And that one of compassion. They'll have to fight their way out of the burning sand. But soon or later they will germinate. I can feel it… And I know it"   
The older woman looks at the young Tusken with renewed admiration.   
_She's comforting me. Right after loosing for the second time her own child…_   
"Maybe _there_ is something you could have taught to him. Something I couldn't possibly talk to him about… Something like... freedom"   
Amira doesn't reply. She silently thanks the spirits of the dunes for concealing her expressions under thick gauzes. And together with the expressions, her emotions.   
She looks away from Shmi and from her own sense of inadequacy. From the endless doubts that torment every choice made. Every opportunity denied. But a pressing thought urges her to focus again on her intelocutor.   
"Thank you, Shmi. Thanks for keeping my secret and protecting my… the child"   
Shmi shuts her eyes closed. Her nod is hardly visible. She draws a long sigh, trying to pluck up her courage.   
"Qui-Gon Jinn… He is Ani's father, isn't he? That's why you let him take the child along…"   
The Tusken woman seems to waver. A never-ending instant.   
"Anakin's soul belongs to the desert. But it belongs to the stars as well and to the... Force"   
It's not an answer. Or maybe it is. Time for words is over. The wheel of life has resumed its slow cycle. And the desert claims Amira back.   
Shmi watches her leaving. Becoming a shade in the shades. Not bent at all under the heavy load of a destiny that like the Force seems to be transmitted through the blood. Mothers who loose their own children. Children who loose their own mothers…   
And she wonders whether this curse will ever end…

**The End**

  
  


_Feedback is welcome, but again, not too "wude", please: I'm from the Outer Rim and don't fully master basic ;)_   
Jinna@sabermail.com


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